Ballet
by Metronomeblue
Summary: Clintasha/Daddy!Clint ficlet inspired by a tumblr post. Or, In which Mathilda Sparrow Romanoff Barton's dance class is interrupted, Clint is badass and Mattie meets a possible new friend.


A/N: Inspired by this post: post/40556179507/jeremy-ruiner-coulsons-hawk-i-will-keep

Basically became Daddy!Clint with some focus on someone else at the end.

Clint hadn't meant to lead them here. Natasha definitely would've killed him if she'd been on the same continent. She might still kill him anyway. Clint has long since learned not to doubt Natasha's ability to kill people long-distance. Anyway, he really hadn't meant to lead them to his daughter, and he especially hadn't meant to do it in such a public place.

He supposed this meant they had to find a new ballet teacher.

Clint kept his eyes on the men on either side of him, flicking his attention back and forth between them, the dance room quickly emptied of all but his daughter Mathilda who, with her usual single-minded focus, was completely immersed in her stretching.

"Daddy!" She smiled, breaking away from the wall and running to him. He couldn't help the fond grin that broke out of his shell, certain that at least with her so close he could keep a better eye on her.

"Hi sweetheart." He replied, sparing a second to look down at her as she locked her arms around his waist. The two men didn't move, eyes still caught warily on the guns in his hands. They probably knew by now that even with half his attention on his daughter, he could (and would) still kill them without half a backward glance.

"Did you bring your work home with you?" Mathilda teased, displaying a touch of the quick-minded woman he had no doubt she'd become.

"Just a little," He smiled, "Maybe you should go call your mother, though." She nodded, grin still glued to her face.

"She's going to be so angry." She giggled, jogging around the doorway to the payphone down the hall.

"Right then, boys." Clint smiled pleasantly, making sure she couldn't see, "As much as I'd love to make this last, because trust me- going near my daughter? Not a good idea. But really guys, I don't want to scar the girl for life, so-" And then, with a pistol to the face each, he dropped the two of them, disarmed them, and tied them quite thoroughly together with a pair of ribbons snitched from a pair of ballet shoes.

"Daddy?" She called, peeking around the doorway, "Mom says you're not allowed to kill anyone in Iowa, so you'd better tie them up instead."

"Tell your mother that first of all, I know, second of all, she's not the boss of me, and third- I am not killing anybody withing twenty feet of you." Clint chuckled,tugging firmly at the knots.

"I'll tell her that then," Mattie said bemusedly, pulling back around the doorframe.

Two months later, all of Clint's suspicions were proven right- Natasha was furious, S.H.I.E.L.D. found some way to spin the incident as a gas leak (how they managed that, Clint did not want to know.) and they did, after all, have to find a new dance teacher.

"So, Mathilda Sparrow Romanoff Barton? Quite a long name, there." The new dance teacher tried to make conversation with the girl sitting forlornly in a corner of the principal's office.

"I know, sighed Mattie, doodling over her science notes. "It was awful learning to spell it in kindergarten." She drew a smiling bird and a glaring spider, with a joyful clothes iron singing old Aerosmith.

"Why are you here, anyway?" The dance teacher asked, wrinkling her forehead.

"They want to know what happened in the dance room." Mattie sighed, adding a thoughtful American flag and a zen green bean to the proceedings.

"What did happen?" The teacher asked curiously, curling up on a chair.

"A couple of people from my dad's work got angry with him and decided to be stupid." She said quietly, expanding her cast with a smiling lightning bolt and a persistenly irritated eyepatch.

"How so?" The teacher sounded more interested than before, and Mattie quirked an eyebrow. "Well, you're just keeping me in suspense," The woman shrugged. "Half a story's no story at all."

"Half a story is a book." Mattie insisted quietly. "The other half's in your head."

"Then tell me the other half." Mattie nodded and added a bear in a suit to the company at the bottom of her page.

"I don't know all the other half," She began, "My mom and dad won't tell me all of it. All I know is that they're heroes." SHe said earnestly. "Real heroes. And I know every kid thinks that about their parents, but it's true for mine."

The dance teacher smiled, tired and sad and fond.

"I used to think the world of my father." She said softly. "I wonder when that changed."

"Maybe you saw the bad in the world." The little girl tilted her head. "Maybe the world changed." The teacher stared, shocked at the little girl drawing.

"Maybe." She nodded. "Maybe."

"Miss Romanoff!" Mattie rolled her eyes at the principal's tone.

"Seeya." She sighed dramatically, stuffing her drawing into her bag. The new dance teacher nodded.

"Seeya." She whispered thoughtfully, shimmering from a petite, faded blond woman to a tall, slender man. He smiled fondly at the closing door.

Then Loki turned, walked out of the office and threw away the gun he had hidden in his pocket.

Clever little girl. Might even be a friend.  



End file.
